1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inspection system (apparatus), and an inspection method of an ID chip that can conduct communication wirelessly, and method for manufacturing a semiconductor device using said inspection method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A semiconductor device typified by an ID chip that can transmit and receive data such as identification information wirelessly has been put into practice in various areas, and the expansion of its market is further anticipated as a communication information terminal of a new mode. An ID chip is called also a wireless tag, a RFID (Radio frequency identification) tag or an IC tag, and one having an integrated circuit (IC chip) formed by using an antenna and a semiconductor substrate is put to practical use at present.
An ID chip is formed through various manufacturing processes and an inspection process is conducted in the end stage of the manufacturing processes. Before being completed as a product, if a defective can be distinguished at an early stage of the steps, later steps of the defective ID chip can be omitted. An inspection process is very effective for reducing the cost.
An inspection process includes an inspection process in which a defective is found out by appearance and an inspection process in which a defective is found out by its electric operation (an electric operation inspection process). If an antenna is already connected to an integrated circuit before isolating ID chips from each other, the electric operation inspection processes are mainly conducted before isolating the plural ID chips by dicing or the like and after packaging the isolated ID chips. If an antenna is already connected to an integrated semiconductor, supply of a signal or power supply voltage to an ID chip is performed without contacting with a reader/writer for an inspection and it can be determined whether an integrated circuit of the ID chip, which is an inspection object, operates normally or not in the above electric operation inspection process.
As described above, an electric operation inspection process before isolating ID chips is effective for reducing the cost in mass-producing ID chips. However, it is an important object in mass-producing ID chips to shorten the time of the electric operation inspection process. As the area of an ID chip becomes smaller and the number of ID chips per substrate is larger, the request for shortening the time needed by an electric operation inspection process is stronger and an inspection system (apparatus) with higher throughput is more desired.
When an inspection system (apparatus) has an anti-collision function that can read signals from a plurality of ID chips, it is thought that the efficiency of an inspection can be enhanced to some extent. However, the number of ID chips that can be inspected by signal-reading of the anti-collision function is about several tens per second. Therefore, for example, if about six hundred thousand ID chips are formed on one substrate and the number of ID chips whose signal can be read per second by the anti-collision function is 30, it takes about five and a half hours to inspect all ID chips formed on the substrate. Therefore, it is difficult to shorten the time of an electric inspection process even if an inspection system (apparatus) having the anti-collision function is used, which leads to prevent TAT (Turnaround time) from being shortened.